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After reading chapter 7, I wanted to see how exactly to include creativity in a math class. This article shows that the beginning of having creativity in a classroom is for students to know that making mistakes and being wrong is ok! This article gives details on how to begin to set creativity as a learn target in math.

"It seems to me that very few children are being taught to love maths or to get excited about it. There's a widespread perception that maths is simply a set of methods that must be learned in order to be able to cope with life after school." I see this a lot in my resource room, my students hate math because most of their material is taught as a process or procedure to get a solution instead of relating it to situations they will be faced with. I think this is where the creativity piece must come in; generating the "ah, aha and haha", and even the "oh", words in the classroom through challenging activities means students are truly starting to understand the mathematics. Students don't want to take risks because they are afraid of getting the answer wrong, but this is the part of learning in math that many students need the most -- they learn best from their mistakes.

My favorite line in this article is, "If maths is to be a creative subject then we have to regard it as a subject where it is OK to get things WRONG." Many times I have heard students say that in math you are either wrong or right and there is no in between. Some students say this is why they like math others say this is why they hate it. Those that like this process are usually good at math or following formulas and directions. What I think both of these groups of students need to realize is math is what is happening between the wrong and the right answer. The teacher should provide them with opportunities to discover math processes using their creativity and building upon their mistakes.

I read this article in September and it just made me think about how far creativity in math can go

This article and video was actually interesting to read and watch. I am all about somehow finding a way to express and encourage creativity in any class but especially math class. I however do not see a wrong answer with a good reason behind it as creative. Maybe the reason was creative but then they are taught that they do not really need to know the material as long as they are creative with their explanation. This is a little weird to me. I am all about making mistakes and showing that mistakes and being wrong are NOT bad. However, the mistakes must be used in order to help fix the misunderstanding or else the student is not learning the material. Having a creative mistake and creative reasoning behind that mistake is great and all, but at the end of the day the teacher must find ways to solve this misconception so that the student knows the correct information.

Links to a YouTube video that shares some of Sir Ken Robinson's ideas on education. This animate was adapted from a talk given at the RSA by Sir Ken Robinson, world-renowned education and creativity expert and recipient of the RSA's Benjamin Franklin award.

Video from the first day of class.

NO. Finally someone in support of the standards!

I actually really enjoyed this website! I do not think standards are necessarily a bad thing as long as they are specific enough for teachers to understand what is expected. I think like we have talked about, PLC are a great way to determine what exactly the standards mean to teachers in a particular school and to teach based around that. I see the standards as guidelines for lessons. Although I am not quite teaching yet and may be missing something, I do not see the standards as THAT bad. The only bad thing is that the standards dictate what is on the state exams and those are bad. This article was interesting to read to see how specfic schools are using their standards to do good in the school.

I am not actually teaching yet either and I often wonder if I am missing something because I also do not feel negatively about the standards. I feel like standards are helpful and it is what we do with those standards as teachers that really make a difference.